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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28410276">All the Way Home I'll Be Warm</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlessedAreTheFandoms/pseuds/BlessedAreTheFandoms'>BlessedAreTheFandoms</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Enterprise</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Christmas Fluff, Cultural Differences, Disaster Twins, First Kiss, M/M, Snow, Snowball Fight, Stuart Reed's A+ Parenting, The author would like to apologize to this pairing for how flufftastic xie has made them, Trip is a ridiculous romantic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:21:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,293</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28410276</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlessedAreTheFandoms/pseuds/BlessedAreTheFandoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Trip Tucker and Malcolm Reed encounter snow on an alien planet, Malcolm loves the discovery and Trip loves watching Malcolm love it.</p><p>(This is 112% holiday fluffery because I need it in my life, so.  Hopefully it's fun for you, too.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Malcolm Reed/Charles "Trip" Tucker III</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All the Way Home I'll Be Warm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm working on what has become a novel (called <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26818558/chapters/65427073">Starry, Starry Night</a>) and its angst is pretty fierce at the moment.  Add that to it being a rough week (year!) and you get me wanting to write a completely ridiculous fluff piece about these two lovelies in my favorite element.</p><p>Title comes from the song "Let It Snow."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Itafah was not the first M-class planet the <em>Enterprise </em>crew had found themselves comparing to Earth, but it was one of the first that seemed to have a winter when they were there.  Light blue snow drifted gently down, familiarly soft but strange to see.  Charles “Trip” Tucker grimaced as a flake landed on his nose and he hurriedly wiped it off.</p><p>“I do believe they aren’t toxic,” observed Malcolm Reed.</p><p>“Just unpleasant,” Trip shot back.</p><p>“Ah, you poor Southerner,” Malcolm chuckled.  “How painful this chill must be to you!”</p><p>Trip grumbled and pulled his jacket closer around him.  “Just because I didn’t grow up in some damp refrigerator of a place—”</p><p>“Come now, Commander!”  Malcolm reached down and scooped up a handful of the blue snow.  “England has some fine weather.”</p><p>“It has weather, all right, and Lieutenant if you throw that at me I swear I’m going to order Phlox to stick you in decon for a week—”</p><p>Trip’s protest was cut short by Malcolm lobbing the snowball gently at him, laughing as it broke apart against his chest.</p><p>“That’s it, I’m gonna—”</p><p>“Lieutenant, Commander, hardly the time for a snowball fight, I think,” cut in Jonathan Archer.</p><p>Instantly, Malcolm was subdued.  “Yes, Captain.  My apologies.”</p><p>Archer smiled.  “It is nice to see snow again, even if it’s the wrong color.  My grandfather used to tell me that <em>his </em>grandfather remembered winters where they would get a full meter and a half of snow—well, that was back when they still measured in feet, but still.”</p><p>“A meter and a half!” Trip gulped.  “That’s—that’s way too much snow, whatever the color.”</p><p>“I think it would be perfect,” said Malcolm.  “It would certainly make for a marvelous snowball fight.”</p><p>“I ain’t ever getting in a proper snowball fight with you, Lieutenant,” said Trip.  “You’d treat it like an actual battle.”</p><p>Malcolm winked.  “So you’d prefer to be on my side?”</p><p>“The mission at hand, first, if you’d please,” said Archer, and both men returned to their scanners.</p><p>Itafah held, their scanners proclaimed, quite a few resources the <em>Enterprise</em> could use to restock its stores out in deep space.  There were also several veins of osmium alloy that Trip and Malcolm both delighted in finding, useful to ship’s protection as it was.  So the two officers found themselves scanning again to find the best place to begin extracting the super-dense element, no longer commenting on the blue snow settling gently on their shoulders.</p><p>It was only after they had found the vein, charted it, and begun the preparations to safely remove the alloy that Archer told the two of them to take a walk for a moment, stretch their legs.  Malcolm, characteristically, balked at the idea of walking away from his duty for even a fraction of a second, but Trip saw that Archer understood it had been too many difficult missions in too tight a sequence; this was an open invitation to them to breathe for a moment.</p><p>“C’mon, Mal,” Trip said, pulling on his friend.  “You can show me how to pack a snowball properly.”</p><p>Malcolm stared at him in horror.  “Do you not even know how to pack a—my goodness, well,” and they were off, Trip leading the weapons expert away into the deep purple trees.</p><p>After a thorough lesson in the best kinds of snow necessary for a well-developed winter arsenal, Trip found himself warm with the exertion of laughter and play.  His breath steamed in the air and he paused, bending his fingers within his gloves and wishing they had a bit more insulation.  He was going to suggest they head back when he looked at Malcolm and stopped in surprise.</p><p>Malcolm had his face tilted to the sky, letting the snowflakes land on his closed eyelids and melt in his eyelashes.  He was more still than Trip had ever seen him, as though—as though he were peaceful, out here in the freezing cold.</p><p>He looked beautiful.</p><p>Trip shook himself, flustered by the thought.  He had thought for some time that Malcolm Reed was an attractive man, known that he had somewhere started finding more delight than irritation in the Brit’s stubbornness and quiet reserve.  But to see him here in the silence of the alien snowfall was to see another side entirely, one that seemed almost as strange as the off-color trees.</p><p>“Mal?” Trip asked uncertainly.</p><p>Malcolm dropped his head, opened his eyes.  “Sorry, Trip.  Did I miss something?”</p><p>The openness on his face was still there but fading by the second and somehow Trip knew that he had to keep it, would fight to keep it in this little clearing of blue and purple.  “Nah, Mal, not at all.  It’s just—I didn’t know you liked snow so much.”</p><p>Malcolm blushed, <em>Malcolm Reed blushed </em>and Trip thought he would die of the shock alone despite the cold seeping into his bones.  Malcolm looked shyly at the ground and shrugged.  “It’s quiet.”</p><p>“Yeah, it is,” said Trip.  “A lot softer than I would’ve thought, too.”</p><p>“Have you never seen Earth snow in person?”</p><p>Trip shrugged this time.  “Once or twice, when we’d visit relatives.  Not much point to seeking it out, even though I guess we could’ve.  Taking a flight just to go get cold didn’t really appeal to a gang of Floridians.  A lot of the stores and stuff would bring in that fake snow around Christmas, though, to make everything festive.”</p><p>Malcolm blinked.  “Fake snow.”</p><p>“Yeah, y’know.  It’s a little plastic-y, but not too bad.  Not great for snowballs.”</p><p>“I’d gather,” said Malcolm with a huff.  He looked back to the sky for a moment, blinking against the flakes dropping on his face.  “It almost always snowed at Christmas in England.  Not much, and it wouldn’t stay long, but it just wasn’t properly <em>Christmas</em> until there was a blanket of white on the ground.  I would go and walk in it for hours on the shore, kicking through the snow mixed with the sand.”</p><p>“By yourself?”  Trip winced as soon as the words left his mouth.</p><p>“Of course,” replied Malcolm, looking again at him with his brow furrowed in question.  “Why not?”</p><p>“Well, for the Tuckers, Christmas was a pretty big family affair.  Get all the clan together, y’know.”</p><p>“Ah.”  Malcolm’s face shuttered and Trip wanted to kick himself, wanted to undo everything in the last minute to get back to that image of Malcolm standing with his eyes closed, savoring the snow.  “The Reeds were—not ones for big family affairs.”</p><p>Trip stood for a moment, wondering what to say.  This was, by Malcolm’s standards, a blatantly open statement, and as much as Trip had gathered about the Reed household’s coldness over the years they’d served together, Trip still couldn’t fathom how this intensely loyal man had come out of a family that seemed so determined to isolate him.</p><p>"We’d best be heading back,” Malcolm said, brushing some of the snow off of himself.</p><p>“Wait,” said Trip, not even knowing what he planned to say, but Malcolm stilled again, looking at him curiously.  “Did—did you ever like Christmas?”  Trip almost rolled his eyes at himself for such an inane question, but he let it stand.</p><p>Malcolm considered, looking down at the snow softly piled at their feet.  “Twice,” he said.  “Maddie and I were sent to our grandparents in Scotland for the holiday when I was a teenager—my father had some duties that needed us out from underfoot.”</p><p>Trip wanted to punch something, preferably Stuart Reed.  The times he’d liked the holiday were when he’d been thrown away to hang out with his grandparents in a cold and unforgiving country? </p><p>“We cut down our own tree,” Malcolm said, and a little smile climbed across his lips.  “It seemed unnecessarily decadent but Grandfather insisted.  And we stayed up until midnight on Christmas Eve to welcome the day.  I think Grandmother’s mother had still been religious and it made quite the impression on her for things like Christmas; she insisted we sing an old hymn together and light a candle at midnight.  Reminded the light of the year to come back, she said.  And the next morning we all went walking, slowly; it’s quiet, in the snow, and nobody needs you to move quickly.”</p><p>Trip watched him in awe, seeing the peace of the memory unfold in his body.  What the hell kind of childhood was it that basically being left alone was the best kind of memory?</p><p>“Well,” said Malcolm, seeming a bit embarrassed.  “They were good Christmases, anyway.  Shall we get back?”</p><p>He was off before Trip could think of a response.</p><p>***</p><p>Three days later, <em>Enterprise</em> was still in orbit and Trip was quite done with the intricacies of osmium and how its refinement worked.  It didn’t help that his brain kept reminding him, whenever he and Malcolm were working together on the use of the alloy, of the man standing in the blue snow with his face to the sky.</p><p>It was quite a distraction, but Trip was never one to back down from challenging a distraction.</p><p>“What do you need, Trip?” asked Archer as Trip entered his ready room. </p><p>“I was wondering if I could go back down to the surface real quick before we head out.”</p><p>“Forget something?”</p><p>“Naw, uh—just something I need to do.”</p><p>“We aren’t leaving until alpha shift, so I don’t see a problem.”</p><p>“And…if Malcolm comes with?”</p><p>Archer leaned forward in his chair.  “Does <em>he </em>know he’s going down to the surface with you?”</p><p>Trip blushed.  “Ah, no, no he doesn’t.  Not yet.”</p><p>Archer’s brows rose.  “Trip, may I ask the nature of your getaway trip to Itafah?  We’re not here for shore leave, after all.”</p><p>“I promise it’ll be quick, Jon, sir, I just—just need to check something.”</p><p>“With Malcolm.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>Archer sighed, his mouth quirking at the edges.  “Should there be some anti-fraternization speech I should be making right about now?”</p><p>Trip twitched, unaware of how obvious he was to his friend.  “I mean, you’re the captain, and I guess if you feel the need—”</p><p>“Just—Trip, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”  The half-smile was replaced by genuine concern.</p><p>Trip took a deep breath.  “No, Jon, I don’t know at all, but my gut’s telling me that there’s something here and if I let us fly away from it then I’ll regret it for a long time.”</p><p>“Well,” said Archer.  “Don’t make my life harder with your gut, okay?  I’m half-tempted to send someone down with you to make sure the disaster twins come back in one piece, but I have the feeling that would ruin what you’re trying to do.”</p><p>Trip grinned at him.  “I’ll be good and steady, sir, I promise.  No disasters here.”</p><p>Archer put his head in his hands and groaned.  “Well, now that you’ve properly jinxed it, get out of here.  Remember, we’re leaving at alpha shift.”</p><p>“Thanks, Jon,” Trip said, leaving to have the much more difficult conversation.</p><p>***</p><p>“What do you mean, we need to go back down?” said Malcolm, rolling himself out from beneath a torpedo bay.  “I thought we got everything we needed?”</p><p>“Well, yeah, of the osmium,” Trip said, feeling awkward.  “But I think we need to go back down once, just, ah, just to be sure.”</p><p>Malcolm’s brow furrowed as he levered himself up to stand next to Trip.  “And it needs to be us.”</p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>“Anyone coming with us?”</p><p>“Ah, nope, just us.  It’ll be quick.”</p><p>There was no suspicion in Malcolm’s ever-shifting grey eyes, Trip was pleased to note, but there was plenty of uncertainty.  “And we’re going on our off time.”</p><p>Trip nodded with a shrug as though he didn’t understand it, either.</p><p>A long moment passed between them before Malcolm tapped his wrench against his thigh and nodded.  “Okay, then,” he said.  “Do I need to bring anything for this ‘being sure’?”</p><p>“No,” Trip said, almost falling in relief that Malcolm had agreed.  “I’ve got everything ready in the shuttle already.”</p><p>“Most prepared I’ve ever seen you, Commander,” Malcolm teased as he went back to his office.</p><p>“Hey!” protested Trip as he followed along after.  “I can be prepared when it matters.”</p><p>“Yes,” said Malcolm softly, stopping so abruptly Trip almost ran into him.  Malcolm looked him in the eye.  “I think you can.”  He disappeared into his office and Trip waited outside, wondering why on earth he had to go and fall in love with the most inscrutable man on the ship.</p><p>Then he had to wonder when he’d started thinking of it with the word “love” attached and by that time Malcolm had reemerged and was leading the way to the shuttle bay as Trip shook himself and scurried to catch up.</p><p>***</p><p>Trip put the shuttle down near the clearing where they had been, realizing any ruse at all was going to fall apart soon if only because the clearing was nowhere near where the osmium deposits had been.  Malcolm Reed was many things, but unobservant wasn’t one of them.</p><p>“Trip?” Malcolm asked as they exited the shuttle.  “Why are we actually here?”</p><p><em>Yep, not unobservant</em>, Trip thought to himself.  “Well, if you’ll—if you’ll just come with me, I have something…something to show you.”</p><p>The blue snow was still falling, although not as heavily as a few days before.  It was almost like sifted sugar drifting lazily down, zigzagging to the ground simply because it had nothing better to do.  Trip led the way and Malcolm held his tongue until they arrived in the same clearing and Trip put his bag down, beginning to unpack it.</p><p>“See, the thing is, Lieutenant, Malcolm,” he said to the bag, “I’ve been thinking a lot the past few days.”</p><p>“I would hope so, given the work that’s been needed for the engine.”</p><p>“Har, har,” Trip replied sarcastically.  He stood and, taking a deep breath, turned to Malcolm, almost losing his nerve at the calm and expectant look on Malcolm’s face.  “No, I’ve been thinking—did you know you were beautiful with the snow on your face?”</p><p>Malcolm’s eyes widened slightly and Trip cursed himself.  That wasn’t at all how he’d prepared this speech, wasn’t what he meant to say, but it wasn’t untrue.</p><p>“I—didn’t know, no,” said Malcolm, and Trip took the lack of Malcolm running back to the shuttle as encouraging.</p><p>“Well, y’were.  And you seem to love the snow, which doesn’t make any sense to me, and I can’t say that the reasons are all that appeasing because it kills me that your family were such jerks to you and didn’t show you things like, well, happiness, but you were so at <em>peace </em>and you’re so rarely peaceful and it was beautiful and I wanted to tell you that.”</p><p>Malcolm opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, took a breath, paused.  Trip suddenly felt like a heel for such a disjointed mess of things that included insulting this proud man’s family and telling him that his love of the snow was stupid and that he himself was a tense jumble and that wasn’t what he’d meant <em>at all </em>but it was out there and if that wasn’t the Tucker way, to speak first and think about it maybe later—</p><p>“You couldn’t have told me that on the ship?” Malcolm asked.</p><p>Trip screwed his courage to the sticking point, drawing deep on the Tucker flair for the dramatic.  “I could’ve, but then I wouldn’t have been able to do this.”  He handed one of his items from the bag to Malcolm—a single candle in a plastic cup, identical to the one in his own glove—and lit them both.  The firelight danced in the gathering dark of the planet, casting small shadows across the purple trees and blue snow.  “I have no idea whether it’s Christmas back home or not—to be honest, I’ve kinda lost track of the months a bit—and I’m only guessing that it’s midnight somewhere, but merry Christmas, Malcolm.  I’m glad to spend the holidays with you, even if there isn’t much celebrating.”</p><p>Malcolm looked at the candle in his hand for a long moment, then up at the snow.  He closed his eyes, letting the flakes drift onto his eyelashes again, and Tucker wanted to take a picture of this man against the plum-colored trees with snowflakes dancing over his face as the candle flickered at his heart.  It was like the best kind of Christmas card Trip had ever seen.</p><p>Finally, Malcolm looked back at Trip and Trip could swear for a moment that there was more moisture in his eyes than melting snowflakes warranted.  “Thank you, Trip,” Malcolm said quietly.  “And happy Christmas.  You know, you’re pretty beautiful by candlelight yourself.”</p><p>Trip could have whooped for joy and almost did before remembering he was holding a live flame.  Carefully, he took the few steps across the clearing to Malcolm, holding his candle away from them.  “I—I don’t have any mistletoe or nothing,” he said, “but it is getting kinda cold out here and I’ve heard kissing is a pretty good way to warm up.”</p><p>Mirth danced in Malcolm’s grey eyes.  “You’ve heard that, have you?” he said, the laughter clearly restrained in his voice.  “I hope from reputable sources.”</p><p>"Very,” said Trip, and he leaned in as Malcolm moved his own candle out of the way and let their lips meet.  Trip could feel the melting snowflakes on the other man’s skin and smiled, reaching with his candle-less arm to pull Malcolm in closer and kiss him more deeply, lips giving way to the warmth of open mouths, their breath escaping in clouds of white steam against the blue snow.  Trip found that he wanted to do far more than kiss this man, or far more in conjunction with kissing this man, and regretfully pulled back.  Malcolm looked slightly dazed in the low light, his eyes searching Trip’s face for any hesitation.</p><p>“So, uh, if the candles didn’t work, I wasn’t really going to sing to you, but I guess I could.”</p><p>Malcolm laughed and let his head fall against Trip’s shoulder.  Trip breathed in that curiously cold scent that seemed to come from snow on every planet as it settled into Malcolm’s hair.  “No,” snickered Malcolm, “I am quite content with the candles.  I have heard you sing while drunk, Mr. Tucker, and I would not subject these poor trees to such a thing.”</p><p>“Hey!” said Trip, affronted.  “I’ll have you know I’m a much better singer when sober.  And when trying to woo someone.”</p><p>“Consider me wooed,” said Malcolm, bringing his head up and lightly kissing Trip again, “especially if it means not having to listen to you sing.”</p><p>Trip grinned, kissing the snowflakes off Malcolm’s cheeks, forehead, eyelids.  “Mission accomplished, then.”</p><p>“Indeed.  I can’t imagine a Southerner like you is happy to stand out here in the snow with me for long, however.”</p><p>Trip blew out his candle and set it in the snow to cool, letting Malcolm do the same.  “Honestly?  Now that I’ve got you, I’m pretty warm.”</p><p>The light from the blue snow surrounded them in wintry elegance and Malcolm kissed him again, long and slow, his gloved fingers coming up to cup Trip’s face.  “Then can we stay out here for a minute longer?”</p><p>“Ah, Mal, I’ll stay wherever you are.”</p><p>Malcolm leaned against his chest and Trip hugged the man to him as they listened to the silence of the falling snow, and Trip thought that he might even learn to like the stuff now that his armory officer had shown him just how peaceful it could be.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Several others have done marvelously sweet renditions of the "Trip restores Christmas for Malcolm" concept, so I'm just adding to their work.  Also, osmium is actually a thing, and I'm pretty sure I learned more about chemistry and that one element in researching this story than in the entire year I took in high school, which tells me a lot about what motivates me to learn things.</p><p>UPDATE OF WONDER:  The lovely <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceCowboy_1">SpaceCowboy_1</a> took the moment of Trip loving Malcolm's stillness and made it into a lovely little <a href="https://whoops-its-forrest.tumblr.com/post/639226516642922496/lol-nice-recovery-trip-based-off-a-scene-from#notes">cartoon panel</a>.  I highly recommend you check it out.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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